Jerusalem

Palestinians recruiting security for Israelis

The Palestinians are recruiting thousands of police in the Gaza Strip to prevent attacks on Jewish settlers and soldiers during Israel’s planned pullout from the area this summer, a security official said Monday, a significant step toward coordination after months of deadlock and years of bloody conflict.

The new signs of cooperation, including a meeting of technical experts late Monday, came despite a confrontation at a disputed holy site in Jerusalem in which Israeli police hurled stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Palestinian stone-throwers.

The violence erupted on “Jerusalem Day,” when Israel marks the anniversary of its capture of east Jerusalem – home to the city’s holy sites and Arab population – in the 1967 Mideast war.

Rome

Pope condemns gay marriage

Pope Benedict XVI condemned same-sex unions as anarchic “pseudo-matrimony” Monday and reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion.

Benedict repeatedly referred to marriage as a union between man and woman in an address to a conference of the Diocese of Rome on the role of the family held at St. John Lateran basilica.

He said matrimony was not just a “casual sociological construction” that changed in certain times in history but rather an institution that had its roots “in the most profound essence of the human being.”

“The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man,” he said.

Nepal

Rebel bomb kills at least 38 on bus

Suspected rebels detonated a bomb beneath a crowded bus crossing a wooden bridge in Nepal’s rural south Monday, officials said, killing at least 38 people and wounding the other 71 passengers on board in one of the bloodiest attacks against civilians since an insurgency broke out nearly a decade ago.

An initial investigation showed a rebel hiding behind a tree used an 820-foot-long wire to remotely trigger the bomb, army officials said.

The army said it was certain the explosion was detonated by rebels fighting since 1996 to abolish Nepal’s constitutional monarchy and set up a communist state. The attack came with no warning in an area many believed to be relatively safe from insurgent attacks.

Turkey

Temblor injures dozens

A strong earthquake Monday shook southeastern Turkey, injuring at least 54 people and demolishing homes, and officials dispatched tents and blankets to the area.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7, struck near the town of Karliova in rural Bingol province, 560 miles southeast of Ankara, the Kandilli Observatory said.

Five of the injured were in serious condition, while others were treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released.

The quake caused several homes to collapse and damaged at least 63 others in neighboring villages, according to the prime minister’s office and local officials.

Ethiopia

Police arrest hundreds of election protesters

Clashes between police and student demonstrators left one girl dead and hundreds arrested in protests Monday against disputed Ethiopian election results, police said.

Students at Addis Ababa University campuses had defied a government ban against demonstrations. Police charged into crowds to grab protesters and beat some with batons during the first public protest against the May 15 legislative elections in which the ruling party retained power.

Public protests have been banned since election day. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s party retained control of parliament, according to official election results that have not yet been ratified, but opposition parties alleged there was widespread fraud.